Wrecks found; none are missing aviator's

Posted: Sunday, September 09, 2007

MINDEN, Nev. - In their quest to find missing aviator Steve Fossett, searchers have come across uncharted plane wrecks six times. But none of the wrecks shed light on what may have happened to the multimillionaire.

Hopes that a crashed plane spotted on the side of a hill might be Fossett's were dashed quickly Friday when ground crews learned the plane last was registered more than three decades ago in Oregon.

As the search for Fossett stretched into its fifth full day Saturday, weary rescuers were no closer to understanding where he was flying or where his small plane might have gone down.

Saturday provided seemingly ideal flying conditions, as fresh Civil Air Patrol volunteers arrived from throughout the West. The wind was light, and a slight haze from Northern California wildfires cleared before planes took off from Minden Airport, headquarters for the search effort.

The effort included 45 airplanes and helicopters - 25 under the jurisdiction of the Nevada Civil Air Patrol and the rest flown by private pilots. All the help has been welcomed by the authorities conducting the official search.

"Anything reasonable that we can add is probably going to make a difference, but we won't know that until the end of this thing," Civil Air Patrol Maj. Cynthia Ryan said Saturday.

Meanwhile, authorities revised the overall size of the search area from 10,000 square miles to 17,000 after they re-evaluated their grid. The updated figure covers a region about twice the size of New Jersey.

Searchers tried to glean any positive news they could from the old wrecks they discovered from an otherwise discouraging week.

"This does give us hope. We are finding a lot of stuff we didn't know was there," Civil Air Patrol Maj. Cynthia Ryan said.

She said Nevada has a registry of known crash sites but estimated that some 150 wrecks of small aircraft over the past 50 years are uncharted.

Crews are marking crash sites discovered during the Fossett search and will return later to examine them in detail. No human remains have been found, which is no surprise in a region where coyotes and mountain lions are prevalent.